The present invention relates to apparatus for processing waste, and intended more particularly but not exclusively for processing hospital waste.
In general, hospital waste comprises a wide variety of solid and liquid materials (glasswork, needles, scalpels, chemical substances, biological tissue, . . . ) that may be biologically contaminated or toxic and which must be handled with special precautions, and in particular the waste must be double-wrapped. Hospital waste packaged in this way constitutes batches containing large fractions of volatile substances and having a relatively high lower calorific value (LCV) of 14,600 kJ/kg. This calorific value is nevertheless highly variable and may reach extreme values of 4,200 kJ/kg and 29,000 kJ/kg. In addition, the processing of hospital waste is subject to regulations that require batches of waste to be stored for no more than a short period on the incineration site, and for hygiene reasons, the waste cannot be removed from its packaging prior to incineration in order to make up batches of uniform calorific value. Thus, when incinerating hospital waste, it is necessary to process a succession of batches in which the calorific value varies in a manner that is not known accurately since, in practice, it is not possible for the personnel in charge of incinerating waste to obtain detailed information about the contents of each batch.